While it's critical to promote policies that help prevent unintended pregnancies and make abortion less necessary, NARAL Pro-Choice America also fights to protect the right to safe, legal abortion.

In 1973, the Supreme Court guaranteed American women the right to choose abortion in its landmark decision Roe v. Wade. In Roe, the Court issued a compromise between the state's ability to restrict abortion and a woman's right to choose.

Since that time, the anti-choice movement has worked furiously to dismantle it – with the ultimate goal of overturning the decision altogether. Anti-choice activists are working hard in state legislatures, the courts, and Congress to take away our rights.

Access to Abortion
Making abortion access more difficult and dangerous is a key tactic of the anti-choice movement. Even with Roe v. Wade's protections still in place, 87 percent of U.S. counties have no abortion provider. Yet anti-choice lawmakers continue to impose a broad range of restrictions on women and their doctors, making abortion difficult, and in some cases nearly impossible, to obtain.

Abortion Bans
The anti-choice movement's ultimate goal is to outlaw abortion in all circumstances. While some states still have laws on the books that would ban abortion throughout pregnancy, Roe v. Wade's protections prevent these bans' enforcement. However, state legislatures across the country continue to consider enacting new total bans in order to challenge Roe in the courts. In addition, in the majority of state legislatures and Congress, anti-choice lawmakers have passed unconstitutional laws that would ban safe and medically appropriate abortion as early as the 12th week of pregnancy.

RU 486 (Non-Surgical/Medical Abortion)
In 2000, the FDA approved RU 486 (also called mifepristone, non-surgical abortion, or medical abortion), giving American women the option to end an unintended pregnancy without surgery. Although millions of women have safely used RU 486 worldwide since 1981, anti-choice lawmakers and groups fought FDA approval every step of the way; having failed, they are now doing everything they can to make it difficult – or even impossible – to obtain. (RU 486 should not be confused with emergency contraception, also known as the "morning-after" pill, which is a basic form of birth control that prevents pregnancy and does not cause abortion.)